I
by Silent Shadow
Summary: Hermione's thoughts in first year, before she makes friends with Ron and Harry.


Ok this fic is set in Harry potter universe. Its Hermione talking but I have amended the universe somewhat. Its makes more sense when you've read it. In this universe, things are only slightly different. This is partly based on my own feelings a couple of years ago. What the scenario is that Hermione is alone. She is ruminating. This is the beginning of first year, or any point in the books. But the important fact is that she is alone. And now I will stop. Read and enjoy, and then reflect.  
  
   
  
   
  
I'm the person in the corner. Always in the corner. Its my…. Refuge. Yes, my refuge, for lack of a better word. No one looks in the corner. I have developed hiding to an art. The corner is always quiet. Its safe.  
  
   
  
" Always keep your back against a wall when outnumbered."  
  
   
  
That's probably the best piece of advice that I've ever received. The corner is safe and it allows me to think. Besides I learned a long time ago my place is in the corner. Away from the charmed circle of the others, the swans to my ugly duckling. Or the fish that swim through the water swiftly, easily, like they belong there. I am the fish that gasps, flounders, will never really belong.  
  
I really don't belong here at all. Well, I already knew that. But they just reinforced it. I cant deny what they are telling me. It's all so true. Cold hostility all the time. No matter what they say, I… I did try and make friends.  
  
In the beginning when alliances are formed that will shape the lives of us all through the years, I tried, but then I've never been a very adept socialiser.  
  
 And no one wants to know me now, me without, the interesting tales and exploits. I am the pale vapid creature that no one notices and rarely speaks to.  
  
Sometimes I almost forget how to reply. How to fit in and almost how to smile. These walls seem so high at Hogwarts. The high walls of indifference and coldness. Its a fact I have no friend. Anything I would give for, in my moments of weakness, someone who would be my friend. I know that myself without them telling me that everyday, every evening. I can't get away from them.  
  
Well I suppose its my fault that I am like I am, but I don't know how to change that. Fate made me, so it's my fate to be like this. At the very least I don't try and change my fate at all.  
  
   
  
The Common room is quiet, emptying. I had best go upstairs. I have all my homework done now. I don't attract attention from them. They take pleasure in making life harder for me all around. Teasing me, hurtful statements that sting like so many knives in what? My heart? My soul? Or is it simply I?  
  
The pathetic essence that makes me… me. They talk about the mind or the soul being separate from the body. But is it also my body that repels people from me? My appearance? It must be. It simply must be. A small part of me used to think that I can't be that repulsive?  
  
But I was wrong. That blasphemous thought, when it reappears from some corner in my mind, I push it away. It must be. I stare into the mirror at times seeing what they must hate.  
  
 I don't like to attract attention to myself, not when I'm not worth it.  
  
But enough of the self-angst.  
  
 How does it feel you wonder, to be ignored all the time? To feel that you don't belong, that you stick out like a sore thumb, to live with the knowledge that you probably aren't worth a damn anyway?  
  
 Or to see the reluctance in which others accept you for group work? Or be an outcast. To be outnumbered. It hurts.  
  
After that I feel ashamed that I haven't steeled myself to receive that pang yet, or the occasional punch. I'm slowly growing to accept it; in fact it's my due. But the hurt never goes away.  
  
 I have no talents, no strong points except my work. My studies. It is the only bright spark in an otherwise dull life, the thing that keeps me going. The joy of learning and of drinking it all in, learning more and more.  
  
Work is numbing. Maybe like a Muggle anaesthetic. But this is only for myself, no one cares that I have an A+ average.  
  
 So my years at Hogwarts will be this. Always working, always studying, coming top.  
  
Perhaps if I work enough, hard enough they will like me. Perhaps, perhaps. But always there is the mocking voice in my head, which never goes away, that tells me that nothing will ever change.  
  
 When I used to turn up at the Hospital Wing, with my bruises, and the grazes and scrapes Madam Pomfrey used to tut and heal them. Now I heal then on my own. I'm not a quick learner for nothing. However there was the one time that they broke a rib. I couldn't fix that myself. Or the time I had a concussion, from when they slammed my head against the wall. She doesn't ask questions.  
  
   
  
The Slytherins, that take their delight in hitting me, I am merely there. I am merely the Gryffindor.  
  
 Houses. I don't know why I was in Gryffindor. I'm not brave. I slink in the shadows. Perhaps I would have been better in Ravenclaw. But then who am I to question the sorting hat.  
  
The world doesn't want me, well the world that I inhabit. I can read it in their eyes. The Professors don't like me either. Snape especially. Well I don't see why they would like me. Its not like I ever deserve anybody to like me.  
  
Snape called me ugly a few times. I know that. People don't have to rub it in, but why shouldn't they. I'm like a piece of driftwood, floating whatever way the tides take me. In this case, the tides of people.  
  
At night, I lie awake and wish that I could go somewhere, away from all these people who hate me and don't notice if I 'm there are not. Wish that things were different. Wish that I wasn't Hermione. Wish that I were someone else, who was accepted. Wish that I looked different. Wish I were different.  
  
 But that's wishing. And wishes don't come true. I'm me, and I'm alone. There's no one else like me.  
  
 So I will be trapped in this cycle of endless misery that makes me want to tear my hair out and scream to the world that I exist. Or do I ?  
  
 Sometimes I can feel the blood heating up in me, and I want to wave my hands and scream and shout. " Why Me??!!"  
  
" I exist! I have thoughts - I have feelings! I am a human as well!!"  
  
 To make then sit up and take notice. But I hide, I sit in the library, in the common room, I listen to a thousand fragments of conversations. I hear secrets, see deceit, see love unfolding. I see the joy on faces, the thousand myriad emotions that cross faces and I bend my head to my work.  
  
 I dare not dwell on anything otherwise the envy and the bitterness and the feeling of coldness overwhelm me. I cast looks at the charmed group that seem to enjoy and take for granted everything. To my shame I wish I could be there. To sit by the fire in the company of people who like me and feel secure. I would love to do that once, just once.  
  
But that will never happen, that I am sure of, so I look instead. And turn my head away. So I sit in my corner. I'm not normal. I can't be. Normal people make friends and grow happy. So I shall join the ranks of the friendless that have gone before me.  
  
Is it normal, for me to be so dark? Is it proper that I should be so unhappy all the time? I don't know. I'm never going to find out though.  
  
   
  
I am upstairs now. She barges past me, bumps into me, knocks my book to the floor. I bend down and pick it up. I don't think she noticed me. I mutter "Sorry" a second later. I must have been in the way. I always am.  
  
 They are whispering now, together, all the girls upstairs in their dormitory. Sharing secrets, gossip. I sit in my bed with my hangings closed and wish to disappear forever.  
  
 So there is another day finished. I am grateful for that. I count my blessings, meagre as they are.  
  
 In this world, the one that I inhabit, I don't know whether it wants me, I don't think so.  
  
 I am outnumbered, with enemies on all sides. So I will get my back against the wall. And take the punches, the barbs as they come.  
  
 Being outnumbered isn't fun.  
  
   
  
A/N. Hermione is being bullied sort of if you haven't guessed. This is based partly on what I went through. Yes she must be slightly passive, accepting it all. Please review. This is my first vignette in a long time.  
  
Reflect. And being outnumbered really isn't fun.  
  
~*~  
  
Note from the beta-reader.  
  
Well, thanks to my good friend Silent Shadow for her encouragement, help, and general insanity over the period of our friendship. I read this for her and betaed, (and she'd better do the same for me!) I also kept a watch on her to make sure she didn't slip from darkness into pitch-blackness, a tendency that caused me to nickname her Tia Maria, after the drink (princess of darkness!!!) I'm proud and pleased to know her, and she's one of the nicest people I know, and I was happy to help her with this story.  
  
~ Cyropi. 


End file.
